Hawaiian Telcom outage caused by fire

Service outage affecting Oahu, Maui, Kauai

Hawaiian Telcom says the cause of service outages on Tuesday was a fire in the early morning hours beneath the H-1 Freeway airport viaduct which burned a large span of fiber optic cable.

Emergency Medical Services officials say a man in his late 50s was burned when the area where he resided caught fire at around 1 a.m. at Nimitz Highway and Kakoi Street. The man was hospitalized in serious condition.

It took firefighters 90 minutes to extinguish the flames, according to fire officials. The cause of the fire was undetermined.

Services of other carriers with facilities in the area are also believed to be affected.

Oceanic Time Warner Cable says approximately 15,000 of its customers experienced a loss of their lower channels on digital cable from around the time the fire happened until around noon. All channels have since been restored.

One-half of Oceanic's Internet capacity to the mainland has also been affected by the damage. Although this has not resulted in an outage, customers across the state will experience slow Internet browsing and intermittent busy phone signals until the situation is resolved.

The service outages are being primarily experienced in West Oahu, but also other areas of Oahu and portions of Kauai.

Our Facebook discussion shows different carriers affected. A resorts company says its business is being impacted in West Maui.

The outage is also affecting Kauai police's dispatch line, according to Kauai county officials. The 911 emergency line was not affected, but the public is being asked to limit their 911 calls to emergencies only.

PHOTOS: Fire under H-1 viaduct

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A fire was reported underneath the H-1 Freeway airport viaduct near North Nimitz Highway and Kakoi Street Tuesday morning. You can see the smoke coming from the red portion of the picture.